


92.5 Years

by penguin1195



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Lily introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 08:21:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3643308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penguin1195/pseuds/penguin1195
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily Evans Potter finds herself wondering when, how, and why her Life Plan had changed so drastically and quickly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	92.5 Years

If you had asked a young Lily Evans what her life would be like, she would have told you that she'd live to the ripe old age of 101, at which point she would die peacefully at the exact same time as her much loved significant other with their three beautiful children looking on in equal parts happiness and sadness.

It would not have been in so many words, but the sentiment was there. As she grew a little older she realized that 101 years was a somewhat ridiculous goal and changed it to a reasonable 92.5 years. She just really liked that number.

If you had told a young Lily Evans that she would die at 21 in a flurry of violence and light, begging for her child's life, she would have socked you as hard as a young child could and called you crazy.

But no one ever told her that. They had no reason to. Lily Evans was a good child, a respectable teenager, and a kind adult. Sure, she wasn't a human embodiment of perfection itself sent from the heavens above, but no one really is. That is, in all honesty, an unrealistic expectation.

She was, however, an inarguably good child. Everyone said so. She minded her manners and played nicely and cleaned up after herself. She was(was) good friends with her sister. And Severus Snape.

(She called him Sev. Years later, he called her Mudblood. Then she didn't call him at all.)

And then her Hogwarts letter came. And then she wasn't such good friends with her sister.

Her mother said Petunia was jealous, and that maybe if Lily could just not mention Hogwarts so much, then it'd all be better.

But, you see, it was quite difficult to not talk about something that was such an integral part of her. So she did talk. And the rift just grew, and Petunia didn't do anything to stop it. Neither did Lily. Lily was stubborn, incredibly stubborn, almost annoyingly stubborn. 

(It's a part of her that will be forgotten and wiped away the second she dies because people always like to pretend that dead people have done no wrong ever in some sort of misguided attempt at respect.)

(She was also quick to anger, often at inconsequential things. Just for the record.)

And then she met James Potter. Contrary to the belief of many, she did not harbor some secret hate love thing for him from the second she met his eyes. Actually, she didn't even care enough to harbor an emotion so strong as hate.

He was just annoying, and definitely not the first bully she'd ever seen. So she'd rolled her eyes at his antics and set to becoming an intelligent and powerful witch. 

(She succeeded at that, by the way. Sometimes people like to forget that too, that she wasn't all soft and caring and motherly all the time. Not that there was anything wrong with that and that she didn't become that from time to time, it just wasn't all of her. She had, after all, fought and served in the Order just as long as James and Sirius and Remus. More than a few death eaters would pale at the mere mention of her name.)

Eventually, he stopped being so annoying and actually seemed kind of handsome but he was still an ass. And then he stopped being an ass. Well, mostly. And then they got married.

(So there might've been a bit more to it than that, but that's the gist of it.)

And then they had a kid. She loved Harry, really. He was sweet and cute and a good kid, like she was. He giggled and ate mushy foods, like most babies she supposed.  
Despite the war, she had never really felt afraid, for her own life at least. She heard of her friends' deaths and her teachers' deaths and felt a deep sadnessbut never feared for her own life.

She was going to live until she was 92.5 after all.

(It was her plan. It had always been her plan.)

It's a kind of thing people have, believing in their own immortalities. 

(When she was 15 and home for the summer she cut stale bread with the knife pointed at herself. Like everyone tells you not to do. So, she slits her finger open. There's blood everywhere. If it had been anyone else using a knife like that she'd have called them an idiot. But for some reason, it just didn't seem like a bad idea for her. But it is. Kind of like that one time she took that interpretative dance class.) 

So when Dumbledore tells her about the prophecy, she doesn't really pay too much attention. She has always been more convinced by stone cold logic than, well, whatever it is that divination is classified as. 

(It was hard to imagine baby Harry with mashed sweet potato smeared over his face defeating Voldemort. The image almost made her laugh.)

But James seemed to take it seriously and Dumbledore was Dumbledore. 

(She thinks that a lot of the reason she refused to take the prophecy seriously is because it seriously derailed her 92.5 plan and made what was always been a nice life lived by a good girl scary and unsure and she was just so afraid. She hated fear. Because she didn't study for hours on end and walk all those elderly people across the street and try so hard to be a good person just to murdered at 21. She didn't want to die. She wasn't ready to die. But she will.)

The whole secret keeper thing was set up. Lily, once again, was not that worried. She trusted her friends. 

And then it was Halloween. She thought about writing Petunia and setting up a meeting, with neither of their husbands. Because Lily hated Vernon with a burning passion and Petunia felt no different about James. She had been telling herself to take the first step for years but a part of her was waiting for Petunia. Because Petunia started it. 

(And she never got a chance to end it. If you looked at Petunia's carefully kept planner, you'd see a very lightly pencilled in "Write Lily" surrounded by question marks on the 31st. Eventually the question marks were erased and the message darkened. Petunia wrote a letter and everything. Then the 31st came and went. Then she burned it because, really, there was nowhere for her words to go.)

And then the gate squeaked and James was dead and Lily didn't know how she got there. There being begging, bargaining with Voldemort, sounding more afraid than she had ever thought she would be. Then she threw herself in front of Harry. And then she was falling with a flash of green light and her life didn't flash before her eyes.  
Instead she heard her little voice reciting her Life Plan and she mentally checks it off. 

(Lists have always comforted her)

-92.5 years old-no  
-peacefully-no  
-surrounded by three children-33.33%  
-at same time as spouse-almost, she decides to count it

She fell, not with a sense of peace and fulfillment, but with horror. She completed only 33.33% of her most basic life goals. 

(She was also a bit of a nerd. A lot of a nerd.)

And that-that was the worst. Because she knew what people would say, after they found her cold, dead body. They will say that she was so, so brave and happy and proud to have sacrificed herself. That she was beautiful in death She was not. She felt angry and too damn young. 

(Who the hell has to die at 21 just so their kid can maybe not die? She didn't remember signing up for that. No one should have to, but she's really not sure what she did to deserve this. Because, dammit, there are places to go and 71.5 more years to live and a Harry to raise and two children to have and a James to love and a Petunia to reconcile with and a Sirius to poke fun at. But it never happened. It never would. She lost her life and every opportunity with it.)

She wasn't angry at Harry, for clarity's sake. She loved him and would happily give up her life for him any day. That wasn't what made her angry, it was the fact that someone was cruel enough to actually orchestrate a situation wherein she had to die for her baby. Because everyone knows that saying "I'd die for you" is more of a feeling and an assurance than something that actually has to happen. No one is eager to die.

So she goes down pissed off and confused and sad and afraid and thinking of all that will be robbed from her.

And Lily Evans, horrible dancer and accomplished academic and master of potions and noted good girl and friend and mother and wife and sister and daughter and fighter and professional stubborn person fell to the floor, dead. Her red hair fanned around her pale face and her still body, like some kind of blood.

Then her story was over. The loose ends and the plot holes remained and would continue to remain, fraying over time. They would be forgotten, eventually. And she was just another book, just another good start that crashed and burned and could have been something great but it just wasn't finished. Really, no one knew why. It really deserved a chance. It doesn't get one though. Because sometimes things just don't work out. Lily Evans Potter supposes that she just didn't work out.


End file.
